Sea and Stars
by AmeliaGallifrey
Summary: Aurora Sinistra follows the path of her late father's footsteps, and finds they lead somewhere familiar. Oneshot.


Disclaimer: Anything recognisable belongs to JK Rowling, Philip Pullman, and, very vaguely, Russel T Davies.

**Sea and Stars**

The Daily Prophet, early 1990.  
Asriel Sinistra, the famed Astronomer, was killed today by a Shade in the Great Library of Alexandria. He is survived by a daughter, Aurora, herself a talented stargazer, who is currently fulfilling her Mastery in this profession in Iceland. It is unknown whether Master Asriel's daughter will seek to continue her father's noble and secretive research.

~

The cottage is so much a part of the coast that its walls seem built with driftwood, the floor constantly strewn with a fine covering of sand. Air, sea air, salt-tinged and fresh, pours through from one end of the house to the other, seeping into every little space with cool, briny fingers.

Everywhere she looks is parchment; some scribbled with her father's hand, some bare, awaiting his endless, effortlessly brilliant words. Pages that will never be filled with script, instead left shipwrecked upon the blotter of his old desk, deserted and alone. Aurora can understand them in their misery, at such a fate.

She walks with slow, sweeping movements through the airy rooms, as the winter sun pours though the dusty glass of the window panes. Beyond them she could see the water, the white of the dunes and the crashing surf; the blue, so bleak it is almost grey, but she does not lift her head, or look.

He is gone, Master Asriel the Great, the Star Seeker, the famed astronomer with footprints so wide and deep that Aurora is certain she will drown within them, or languish in their depths. She is afraid, alone, and so numb that she feels deafened, but that perhaps is the roaring of her blood, the breaking of her heart so noisy and messy within her chest.

He is gone, and she remains. To collect and catalogue his few possessions; the books, the star charts, the beautiful, gleaming telescopes.

She remains, to administer his estate and the rights to his work. The royalties from his published works will pour a rain of gold into her vault at Gringott's, once his and theirs and now made hers, alone, with nothing more than looping signature and a whispered condolence.

The last room of the house is the sunroom, and it is this threshold which Aurora is most afraid to cross. She hovers, breath leaving her like her very soul, and casts her eyes around the small, circular space.

Her father, her blessed and damned father, has charmed the ceiling into an invisible dome, and through it the midday sky is a mottled blue, streaked with whisps of cloud, a daytime moon pale and waning overhead. Aurora steps, transfixed, along the worn lines in the sandy floorboards, the very traces of her father. She paces to the centre of the room, and lifts her face to the sky.

*

The sun sets, melting into the blue lines of sea and horizon, and Aurora watches its passing from the sitting room window, grief moving in hollow, breaking waves through her.

Galileo blinks at her with his enormous bronze eyes, and hoots balefully from his perch by the bookcase, and she cannot fathom what she will do with the ancient eagle owl in Iceland, when she returns. If she returns.

Her Mastery is complete, but Iceland is her home, now, and she could easily step into a position at the college, continue her research and perhaps even teach, a little. She loves the cold sharpness, the foreignness of the little country; the snow and the ice and the grey of it. But there is so much to do, so much of her father's work to be catalogued and published and filed away, meetings to be taken and cheeks to be kissed in his academic world, a world which has never been hers. There is Alexandria, the small flat he took there, probably filled to the brim with just as much minutae as his seaside house, but she isn't sure she can face the heat and the looming shadows of ancient civilization gazing down upon her, condemning, accusing. The city where he died

A better daughter. More vigiliant, more insistent, more caring. All the things she has failed to be clamour at her heart and for a moment she cannot bear the din; thudding and rapping and crashing like drumbeats in a death march, and it is only Galileo and his spooked noise that tells her the sound is real, and coming from the front door.

The man, framed in twilight on the porch, is one she knows but has not seen for years.

Albus Dumbledore, hat in hand, makes her a gift of a small, sad smile, and she remembers in a rush her father, kneeling on the hearth and buried in discussion with his brilliant friend until all hours.

"Headmaster!"

Aurora cannot sculpt any further words, but the blue eyes seem understanding, and his hands, wizened and ancient, clasp her shoulders in a touch so very _fatherly_ that grief threatens to choke her once more.

"Miss Sinistra. I have come to pay my most heartfelt condolences."

She stumbles, stutters and somehow manages to step aside, and Dumbledore sweeps over the threshold and grants Aurora a moment to recompose herself by leaning interestedly over Galileo, and murmuring to the bird in a familiar tone.

"Headmaster, please, sit."

She gestures with a shaking hand to the small table, and Dumbledore smiles with a serenity she remembers clearly from school, folding his long limbs into a chair and steepling his fingers.

"Would you like tea? It is all I can offer you, I'm afraid, there is little in the way of refreshments in this house." She does not say that her father was frequently too distracted by work to eat, and that she herself was abroad, all the time she should have been here, fixing his meals and caring for him.

Dumbledore nods, and his voice is worn and warm and so utterly familiar that Aurora cannot help but feel calmed.

"That would be welcome, but please, do not trouble yourself."

I have never troubled myself on the behalf of another, she thinks bitterly, slipping into the small kitchen and collecting tea leaves, milk and sugar. My pursuits have been my own, and all others be damned, and now he is gone and there is no way to make up for my selfishness.

Dumbledore is still smiling, eyes atwinkle in his face, as she sets the tea things upon the table.

"Thank you, Aurora. If I may address you as such, of course."

She perches in an opposite chair, pouring tea and finding it difficult to look the old wizard in the eyes.

"Of course you may, Headmaster."

They sip in silence for long minutes, the crashing of the surf and the hooting of the owl the only distraction from the sickly thudding of her heart in her chest, until Dumbledore sets down his cup and fixes her with an exacting stare.

"I had known your father for many years, Aurora. We were friends, close friends, you know."

She nods, remembering.

"He spoke very highly of you, Headmaster. And my father's good opinion has never been something freely given."

Dumbledore chuckles quietly, his eyes wistful.

"Indeed."

The old wizard draws a deep, sighing breath, and folds his long-fingered hands on the tabletop before him. Aurora can feel something approaching, like an electrical storm out to sea; unseen, yet, but looming.

"I imagine the task of administering his estate must be rather daunting for you."

She blinks, allowing a frown to pass her face, and looks him finally in the eye.

"It is, Headmaster. I confess, I am not entirely certain where to begin."

He smiles that benevolent smile again, and Aurora cannot help but think this confusion of hers is another failure.

"I would like to offer my services to you in that area, Aurora. I am certainly no astronomer, but I would be happy to assist you in any way I can. I am particularly skilled at negotiations regarding publishing rights, among other things. I am also, by happy coincidence, scheduled to make a trip to Egypt in a weeks' time. I would gladly be willing to dedicate some of my time, whilst there, to the sorting of your father's things in Alexandria."

His trip is no coincidence, she is sure, but the prospect of handing over this most terrifying of tasks to someone else is so relieving that Aurora finds herself releasing a long-held breath. Dumbledore smiles again, and places a gentle hand upon her wrist.

"I shall take that as acceptance of my offer, then?"

She nods, rather more fiercely than she meant, and Dumbledore's fingers are tight around the bones in her hand, as if he may be attempting to hold the pieces of her together.

"Thank you, Headmaster. You can have no knowledge of what a comfort your help will be to me, in this time." She feels a warm rush of gratitude, a thankfulness for someone else willing to taking over the role of decision-maker, of parent, when she herself feels so utterly child-like, so lost at sea.

"It is my pleasure."

Dumbledore releases his grip on her, and takes a sweeping look around the dusty sitting room, while Aurora sips her tea and stares into its depths. It is quiet between them for a long moment, before the old wizard breathes in rather sharply and turns back to face her, his face bright with something like excitement.

"Now, I know it must seem very far from my business, Aurora, but if you would please remember that I do like to take a rather... enthusiastic interest in my students' achievements. Particularly the more talented among them."

She has no earthly idea what he is referring to, so instead continues with her tea and waits, eyes skating over his bright face.

"I hear you achieved excellent results in your Mastery, Aurora, and that your research is soon to be published in _Modern Astronomy_, is that correct?"

She has forgotten, in the chaos and the mourning, that at this very moment, her written words have been printed in stately black ink and bound in creamy pages, ready to be shipped out to all interested academic minds in the monthly journal. She has forgotten, even though barely a week ago it was the greatest achievement of her career thus far, and her greatest source of happiness.

"You are correct, Headmaster. It is an honour."

Dumbledore's blue eyes fix upon her again, and she feels transparent as seaglass.

"Perhaps not as great a pleasure as you had hoped, given the circumstances?"

She nods, dismayed at the lone tear that slips from her eye, but Dumbledore continues on.

"Have you made any decisions about the future of your work? Will you perhaps be seeking to continue your research in the North?"

The North. The impossible, unknowable North, except she has known it; she has lived, the past four years, amongst the snow and the water and the ice, and it has been home, but now she is not sure she could face the return.

"I am undecided, Headmaster. I have been offered a position at the astronomical college, but..."

Dumbledore is smiling that knowing smile again; as if he is terribly excited and struggling to maintain a cool composure.

"Might I seek to further complicate your decision, Aurora, by offering you a position?"

It is the very last thing she would have expected. She feels her lips part in surprise, and stares blindly at the old wizard, who is now positively beaming with anticipation.

"You... you are offering me a position at Hogwarts? A teaching post?"

Dumbledore nods hopefully, and reaches across the table to seize her wrist again.

"I know it is far removed from the thrill of research, Aurora, and perhaps not something you would have considered in Iceland, but I am confident you would be an excellently patient, inspiring teacher to young witches and wizards. I have also considered that you may see some benefit in taking up a post at the school, rather than returning to the North. It would be with far greater ease, I imagine, that you would be able to administer your father's estate from within Britain, rather than should you be living abroad."

It is true, but Aurora cannot help feeling perhaps a little blackmailed; he has offered to help with the estate, and has now tempered this offer with something that sounds very much like a condition. She pauses, utterly overwhelmed by the unexpectedness of this new development.

"You would be doing a great service to the school, Aurora, and wizarding education in general. You have great knowledge and, dare I say more importantly, passion, for the field you have chosen."

She thinks at once that she has chosen nothing; that she has merely walked in her father's shadow down paths he has already explored, stepped where he has stepped, gazed where he has gazed, into the sky. The stars are all she knows, and they sing in her very blood. There can be no choice, when one is born to it.

"Headmaster, I..."

"Do not feel you must offer me a response immediately, Aurora. It is no small decision. Think on it. Term begins in September, as you know, so you have plenty of time available for contemplation." He looks sharply at her for a moment, as if considering heavily his next words.

"I have sought out no other astronomer for this appointment, Aurora. I seem, foolish as it may prove, to have my heart rather set upon you."

The smile that crawls across her lips is the first in a month to do so, and the strangest sensation begins to overcome her; a flooding lightness pouring into her limbs, and chasing shadows from her heart, somehow. A memory shifts like wind into her mind.

"My father taught at Hogwarts."

Dumbledore's eyes are piercing.

"Yes. For seven years. Long before you were born, before he married your mother."

She pushes aside the word mother with practiced calm, and instead remembers the castle. The stone and the cold and the very history, seeping through the walls and across the grounds like ether. She remembers the Tower, her favourite place in her own schooling years, the simple joy of standing beneath the night sky, so high. Hogwarts. Her father's home, once upon a time.

Dumbledore stands, a wistful smile upon his face. He clasps her hands in both of his, and her fingers seem to disappear in his grasp.

"Please think on it, Aurora."

She nods slowly, heart racing, decision already sweeping over her, bringing with it relief, and a remembrance of happiness.

"I shall send you an owl later in the week, to organise my work with your father's things, in Alexandria. I thank you for the tea, Aurora, and for the conversation."

He turns in a swirl of purple velvet, and before he has reached the door her voice escapes her, unbridled and powered almost solely by instinct.

"Headmaster?"

He glances back at her, impossibly tall in her father's tiny house, blue eyes sparkling like the sea, like the stars.

"Yes, Aurora?"

A breath, a heartbeat, a crossing of her fingers behind her back for luck.

"I accept."


End file.
